Want a Mac with a built-in Blu-ray Disc drive? You're in for a long wait - Apple's waiting until the technology becomes more firmly established with consumers.
Speaking at the launch of Apple's new notebooks yesterday, CEO Steve Jobs described Blu-ray as "just a bag of hurt" - this despite the company's membership of the Blu-ray …

Yeah but no but

"It should always also be remembered that regional coding and HDCP DRM are both in existence because of the movie studios - do you honestly believe that a hardware manufacturer wants the additional hassle of adding in chips for all this stuff ?"

Unfortunately in this case one of the manufacturers also owns a major movie studio.

And actually, now I think about it, the other manufacturer's CEO pretty much owns Disney.

@liam

"if you cant see a MASSIVE increase over upscaled content either get new eyes or throw away that shitty cheap ass TV"

That's the point though. The vast majority do either have dodgy eyesight or (far more likely) a shitty cheap ass TV.

You can jump up and down raving and foaming at the mouth about how gobsmackingly amazing Blu-Ray is. It makes no difference to Joe "shops in Currys, Argos and ASDA" Public, and they aren't about to buy a spanking new HD set up even if you grabbed them by the neck and shoved their face in an HD demo display to show them how amazing it is. "Yeah, nice, but I have a mortgage and kids and a life. DVDs look great on my telly".

I don't get this delusion that Blu-Ray will replace DVD. It won't. It has to be forced on the consumer, and there's no way that can be achieved. What can force "HD" on the consumer is broadcast and download TV through the phasing out of SD. That will take decades to achieve, but even then as HD telly is phased in, broadcasters will be eyeing up ways to deliver movies on a pay per view basis in HD to the consumer, be it VOD, near-VOD, traditional net downloads, dedicated streaming services from ISPs that run in parallel to traditional broadband, or (as in Tosh's plan) flash media distribution.

The latter sounds all the more interesting the more I think about it. Imagine a credit card sized media card with flash storage enough to store some HD movies. In 5 years, flash memory will allow the average Joe to have 5 to 10 HD movies of Blu-Ray bitrate sizes on such a card. They pop into a shop, bank, post office, cash machine, whatever and order up some movies, then pop it into their player. Those with serious broadband can have a device to download them overnight (quicker than it takes Play.com to ship a DVD).

How about, you go to the cinema and watch the latest film, plus you can stuff a few other not so recent films on your card whilst you're there?

Re: @Maybe it's just me

> How many have 1080p TV's

Good point. Most have LCD TV's. A couple have 1080p. I would say half have HD TV's of one kind or another but the majority of those probably have 1080i/720p, not 1080p. It just isn't something most people care about. I'm a techy and even I'm not that bothered. When FreeSat PVR's are launched I'll probably pick one up (assuming you can get a decent capacity for around £150) but the cost of HD content is just way too high at the moment and the picture quality really does not justify it.

Yes, for certain stuff it looks a lot better but, really, Transformers? If that's the pinnacle of HD content then is it any wonder it's failing?

As a guide, here's the last several films I've rented;

There will be Blood

No Country for Old Men

Jumpers

Attonement

Fargo

Out of those, the only one that might have benefited from HD was Jumpers and, frankly, that would have benefited more from being sent back before I watched it - awful piece of shite.

So, in summary, HD is too expensive at the moment, there haven't been many decent films, everyone has huge DVD libraries and they don't want to buy them again in a new format and people just aren't that interested.

@Two points

"First. Steve Jobs, his company and products can fuck off and go to hell."

well, I'm always open to a reasoned and rational argument ...

Jobs doesn't give a shit about tech only about control - if he says its hard to license, he means it's expensive for Apple to dominate. His company makes nice looking, easy to use products that are as expensive as people are prepared to pay (doesn't make them idiots, or him any worse than any other business man, imho).

Same goes for Sony, come to that.

Anyone thinking they are somehow directing the market through their choices (of format etc) is unlikely to be doing so - the lowest common denominator drecktoids are the ones doing so and they probably don't think too much.

@HD-DVDs ARE region free @Maybe Joe Public has wised up?

The best things that downloads can bring us is the demise of Region Coding in BD. Once the good people of Tokyo, Stockholm, Baltimore, Paris and Ebbsfleet use their FTTx broadband to download the same movie from the same server in Cupertino, and play in different regions, the concept of the studios trying to stop US DBs from being sold in Spain goes out of the window.

Yes, I know I can already wait overnight to download a torrent, but that's a business case the studios and BDA wish to ignore. When legal downloads push new releases globally in minutes, region coding becomes a thing of the past.

I tried to swap my aging UK DVD player for a BDP-S350, and found that the North American version can't be set to multi-region/region-free even for DVD! So it went back as my legally purchased kids DVDs are what matters most.

Re:I hate Jobs. He is such a retard.

Oh dear LORD...

Read Jobs's comments again. He quite clearly states that it's the complexity of obeying the licensing that is causing the current problem, not that he wants to sell you Apple TV files. Blu-ray continues to be a mess of different video and audio codecs, and the DRM requires all sorts of obfuscation on both the memory and outputs. Sounds to me that isn't playing nicely with OSX at the moment, and until they can make it 'just work', they don't want to go there. The current state of Blu-ray playback on the PC is an utter mess, if you doubt it.

Oh, and Mark is at the kool-aid again, I see:

"LOL, 99.9% of Blu-ray players ARE upgradable, and already are, at the final Profile 2.0"

The PS3 is. Now, I admit that it equates to 95%+ of the market all on its own. But standalone players, while upgradeable in the sense that they can have their bugs patched, don't have the ability to upgrade Profile. 1.0 players simply don't have the second video decoder hardware, and 1.1 players don't have enough memory to meet the 2.0 spec, or they would out of the box.

I normally....

He may want to stick it on high end systems for that Ooooo, look factor, but why would most people want to subsidise this?

I may be flamed on a Techy site for saying, but I reckon for 99% of Joe public, DVD is "good enough". Personally I don't give a toss if I can watch a movie from 376 angles, in 40 languages, with outtakes, commentries, trailers etc. I just want the bloody film!

Maybe it because I'm over 30, I've long given up on the latest and greatest, let the young and foolish burn their money I say, I'll reap the benefits when I can get the payer for £15 from Tesco.

I have a BR Dive!!!

Personally I like it, and I think the extra detail (on newer films, most noticable on cg shots) can be good eye-candy.

Apart from that I'm convinced that the HDTV and bluray formats are just a scam fathered by the conceived need to have 50 inch TV's in your living room.

Get a 50" LCD and plug in a dvd that you watched on your old CRT 20". It looks awful in comparison because its stretched to fit the bigger tv....... so, you need a full HDTV and sky hd and bluray players just to have a decent picture on your grotesquely gluttonous oversized starescreen. Thats all it is, just a decent picture on a giant screen. Its not proportionally any better than a dvd on a much smaller screen IMHO.

I think that if you're loaded enough to afford a 2 grand tv for no good reason then you can afford a bluray player or skyhd to go with it and if you cant then DONT BLOODY BUY ONE.

otherwise, if dvds are good enough then why moan about it? no-one can make you buy it.

the br player in question is actually on my new laptop, an acer <insert model number here (woops i peeled the sticker off last week)>. It's a nice high spec one, the bluray drive wasnt a factor in whether i bought it or not, however there is something reassuring about supporting all the current optical formats on one drive :)

and no, I havent bought any brd movies, nor would i. due to the points listed above, the detail difference is negligable on a 15.4" lcd (it came with a BR demo disc).

Odd that

Given that most people I know here (Working class / blue collar) are trading up to HD, why....because its new and shiny and takes up a ton less space than the old CRT. But they dont have Bluray...why....because no one has explained the concept properly in normal terms, and the media is too damn expensive right now.

DVD was the same, VHS is good enough, I can wait while it rewinds, It'll scratch too easily, costs too much

Downloads ??

Ack! Jobs is right!

Those of you stating that'd you'd want a writable Blue-ray... That's the "Bag of hurt" Job's is talking about! Sony doesn't want the masses to be able to burn their own BD discs, that would lessen their control of the format! Sony just wants read-only capability on the PC, so they can control the content, at a hefty price!

So there's a jungle of licenses, royalties and restrictions for anyone wanting to offer that capability on their systems, and right now, it simply ain't worth the time, money or effort to offer it. (Except for VERY expensive bragging rights, of course.)

DVD is 'good enough'

Honest... even on a hulking great 1080p player.

Sorry to disappoint the BluRay fanboyz but BluRay is obviously compressed because you can see decompression artifacts on it on in-store demos. Both BluRay and HD-DVD were more about selling advanced DRM than high definition disk formats. BluRay offered more to the studios and so it won out. HD-DVD was more consumer friendly with its bi-layer / two side options with standard DVD but that's been mitigated by studios like Disney who have figured that if you want to push BluRay then you've got to offer a free standard DVD along with it.

I can download movies from Amazon to my TiVo. They don't download in real time (don't have FIOS yet....) but you order them and they turn up on its "Now Playing" list just like regular TV. Quality's adequate to good, too....

DivX is best

The problem with DVD and probably Blueray is all the nag screens you get and associated video pirate messages. With DivX the movie just plays. This suits me because I play the same movies for my kid and having to hit the next button 10 times at a cost of 1 -2 minutes is a pain. Times that by 50 which is about how many times my kid has watched Finding Nemo and that is a whole hour of my life right there.

CD vs LP: in the interest of historical accuracy

Nobody has mentioned an important reason for the fast adoption of CDs to deliver music: their near immunity to physical damage. With an LP, every time you played it, you damaged it a little more.

Another reason: physical size. CD, 5.5", LP 12" diameter.

Sound quality? Hardly. I have CDs of acoustical 78 rpm records from the 1920s where it's the performance that's the thing.

Why is there no icon for "important message from an old fossil"? I got my official geezer id card in the mail yesterday and am asking my friends to refer to me henceforth as "your stony-boned-ness" or "your petrification", and address me informally as "old fossil."

For the record...

I have a Bush 14" TV/VCR in my lounge. I can watch DVD's on it. Sound runs through a modest Cambridge amp to some modest JVC speakers. TV screen size is an exercise in willy waving. Always has been, always will be. Sound quality is always overlooked. Always has been, always will be.

Judging by the old Sony/JVC/Panasonic/Tosh/Philips CRT TVs that get dumped on the streets round my way and the ASDA/Tesco/Beko flat screen boxes a vast quantity of the folk who buy these big tellys don't even know what they've bought.

But they know it's bigger and flatter than their old one.

Yes I'd probably like a slightly bigger telly, but the one I've got "just works" and is "good enough" and to be honest, when the admittedly shabby Bush 14" gets replaced at some indeterminate time in the future, it'll probably be with a projector and Media "Center" of some sort. It may or may not be BR compatible. But that'll be an incidental point.

Finally, to those who say "Hey luddites, get a 1080p screen NOW! and you'll see the difference": get knotted thricely. I will not be help you justify your purchases of overpriced toys by doing the same thing. You bought 'em in the first place in order to feel superior. Yet once you get 'em you feel insecure in case they don't catch on. Sorry 'bout that. But if/when they do catch on, you wouldn't even feel superior then, cos all you can do is point and say "18 months ago I paid three times what you did for that". You're not a pioneering "Early Adopter". You've either a) got more money than sense, or b) less sense than money.

Not adopting, wonder why

World wide banking collapse, $4.00 gasoline all summer, player costs 6x what a DVD player costs, movies cost 2x as much as dvd to buy...

On the no Blu Ray until HDTV is adopted. Everyone I know has upgraded to HD TV sets in the last 10 months, and I mean everybody.

Content - Dish, DirectTV, boradcast, even cable is all delivering HD content for 1/6 or less of the cost of a BluRay disk. You can rent the movie 6 times or record it to a DVR. Why buy it? Until the idiots drop the media price to under $20 Blu Ray adoption will remain minimal.

Oh yeah and then there is burning a copy of a HIDef Satelllite movie to a Blu Ray recorder...

The real reason...

Apple uses slot load 9.5mm optical drives. Guess what? There is no Blu-Ray 9.5mm slot load drive available in the market! As soon as one becomes available, Mr Jobs will suddenly change his position. This just goes to show you the kind of guy Steve is. If he doesn't have the feature, he does a slight of hand and downplays it, until he supports the feature, then it's better than sliced bread.

its not price, people feel they don't need it

All this security doesn't seem to have stopped commercial piracy of blue-ray disks; and I find DVD DRM enough hassle when it comes to doing reasonable things like playing videos on my PDA and laptop; why would I want to make things harder with blue-ray

Tru Blu fan

I have a 100+ Blu-rays a mixture of region A & B which I used to play on my PS3.

I just recently bought a Sony stand alone player for £250 from the Sony shop which I thought was bargain as I originally paid £500 pound for my first DVD player when they were first released.

People forget that dvd's cost £20+ when they were first released and I have never paid more than £14 any of the Blu-rays I have. The only place that sells disc for £25 is HMV or that strange Zavi shop.

Downloading films from the net is not a option for me as I can only get a 2mb connection in my area and I also like having the option of lending my disc to friends and family.

Hmm...

I suppose we could consider the majority of people on here as "target market" for Blu Ray, but with so many people reporting discs costing £25 and that being outrageous (which it is) it's clear there is an issue.... anyone who pays £25 for a disc is silly, there are hundreds of places to buy discs far cheaper than that, even new releases can be found for usually 25% off without too much effort:

http://www.movietyme.com/catalog/

http://www.axelmusic.com/

http://www.dvdworldusa.com/

http://www.deepdiscount.com/Hi-Def_stcVVcatId462356VVviewcat.htm

Are the main ones i use, and check here - http://bluray.liesinc.net/ - to see which discs are not region coded so you could save by buying from abroad.

AppleTV is great, a lot of newer movies are coming with Dolby Digital, sure it's not TrueHD but for the "average" user it's perfectly fine... and seen as so many people above are saying that DVD is fine for them, then a downloaded movie with Dolby Digital 5.1 will also be fine, as it's the same... the fact that it'll be 720p will be an appreciable increase in picture quality too.

Oh and you can get downloads in 1080p with TrueHD, just not from a legit source... and a 45Gb (typical) download size does take a while even on my Be Internet connection

As for players, they're getting cheaper day by day, the current budget king is the Samsung BD-P1500 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0016J72SM/202-3314281-8268652?ie=UTF8&tag=spoavetstu-21&linkCode=xm2&camp=1634&creativeASIN=B0016J72SM) is £163 and includes "I Am Legend" and "Ocean's Thirteen" for a Blu Ray player that is very cheap, it will upscale your DVD's too (sure you can buy an decent DVD upscaler for about £50) add in the nice bonus of converting HD audio to max bitrate DTS over optical or coax for those that don't have the latest amps... it's a result!

FWIW, i think Apple are right.... i transfer films to my Macbook Pro to watch, i wouldn't lug a series of Blu Ray discs around with me as it's just not worth it. Though i can understand the desire for Blu Ray recordable for archiving purposes, but a USB hard drive is pretty bloody cheap these days!

The real question is though...

...other than the couple of Mac users in here that have directly commented on their own wants and needs, does any REALLY care if BR drives come to Macs any time soon?

It wasn't a shitty comment either, but a genuine question. The comments have gone way way off point as normal so I thought I'd bring it back to the article. We know by a large it is because Jobs want to cut a market off that is a rival to Apple HD downloads but in the end...

... as with the ranting comments and rumours about a 360 BR drives, does anyone REALLY, TRULY give a toss about BR coming to Macs or not?

@Liam

"for films like transformers there is a massive difference over the dvd!"

Transformers? Is that really the best argument that you can come up with in favour of spending a pretty significant wad of cash to upgrade? A movie that was released 15 months ago?

I could spend a tenner going to see it in the theatre, or a grand to see it properly" at home.

FFS.

Amazon.com shows 20 Blue ray releases scheduled for the week or October 7th, 31 for the week of October 14th, 32 for the week of October 21st, and 33 for the week of October 28th.

DVD? 593, 450, 344 and 515 for the same 4 weeks.

That's 116 BRD releases versus 1902 DVD releases. And the ratio of utter shite is probably not that much different in either format (at least if Transformers is being held up as the epitome of BRD quality).